Institutes, Centers, & Initiatives

Engaging with the community

Institutes, centers, and initiatives empower Lutgert College of Business to engage with the community beyond the classroom. Through these organizations, FGCU faculty conduct research, collaborate with their regional business partners and offer their expertise, sharing resources and contributing to the community.

Center for Agribusiness
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The Center for Agribusiness (CAB) seeks to enhance the economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural operations in Southwest Florida by providing well-trained professionals who are knowledgeable about agriculture and its role in the Southwest Florida economy.

Visit the CAB website
Center for Supply Chain Excellence
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The Center for Supply Chain Excellence (CSCE) seeks to achieve excellence in supply chain management through high-quality leading-edge educational programs and outreach activities in partnership with industry. The CSCE is committed to bringing together professionals in the supply chain management with LCOB faculty and students to facilitate knowledge partnerships and to develop and disseminate best practices in supply chain management. The CSCE will facilitate the education and development of students to become future leaders in supply chain management, as well as offer certification and educational programs for industry professionals.

Visit the CSCE website
Institute for Technological Innovation
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The Institute for Technological Innovation (iTi), with the sponsorship of the Department of Defense and private industry, has developed on-demand, online, mobile, portable courses and systems applications and tools for learning from anywhere, anytime.

Visit the iTi website
Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development and Finance
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The Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development and Finance was established to reflect the important role that real estate development plays in the Southwest Florida economy and to address the need for a graduate degree program to prepare students for the challenges in this highly competitive industry. The institute works closely with the Real Estate Investment Society (REIS) of Southwest Florida. Links to both websites are below.

Visit the Lucas Institute website
Newton Ethical Leadership Initiative
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Regional Economic Research Institute
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The Regional Economic Research Institute (RERI) performs economic research, analysis and forecasting for various organizations in Southwest Florida. The Institute has published many works, including a monthly Southwest Florida economic report and a quarterly business climate survey report.

Visit the RERI website
Small Business Development Center
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The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is a customer-driven organization of business professionals, dedicated to helping small businesses succeed, by enthusiastically providing creative solutions which exceed customer, employee, and stakeholders’ expectations.

Visit the FSBDC @ FGCU website
Southwest Florida Leadership Institute
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The Southwest Florida Leadership Institute (SFLI) serves as a source for training and programs, best practices, research, and other business leadership competencies for the Southwest Florida region and beyond.

Visit the SFLI website

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Issue Brief: Microbusinesses in Southwest Florida

August 10, 2022 / RERI Research Team / Tags: issue brief, reports

In this issue brief, we expand the analysis from our previously published issue brief that examined microbusinesses in Lee County, Florida by expanding the geographical area to all of Southwest Florida (defined as the five-county area encompassing Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties). Information in this Issue Brief was collected on July 29, 2022 from USA Reference database. The database represents a list of establishment-level records that is continuously updated to provide the most up-to-date information about businesses. US Reference provided 72,800 records containing all establishments with no more than 500 employees located in the entire region. The list included some records for individuals (primarily in the Health Care and Social Assistance industry) that worked for the same establishment. These records were removed from the analysis. Furthermore, all establishments that were in Public Administration were removed. This reduced the total number of records to 62,268.

Better Forecasting with Machine Learning: Deep Learning from Amazon

August 10, 2022 / Wednesday Webinar / Tag: Center for Supply Chain Excellence

Demand forecasting has been a laborious chore, needing substantial resources in terms of data scientists, software, etc. This led many businesses to evolve simplistic forecasting models. In this webinar the speaker demonstrates a new breed of tool that leverages the best known technology and at the same time makes it easy for businesses with limited data science expertise to operate.

Lee EBCS: Third Quarter 2022 Report

August 01, 2022 / RERI Research Team / Tags: Executive Business Climate Survey, Lee County

In times of growth and expected growth, businesses want to hire more and plan for extra investments that will allow them to meet up their demand. However, if businesses believe the economy will not continue to grow, they refrain form adding workers and investing given expected lower demand for their goods and services. The responses from businesses to our recurring questions show some mixed signals in the current economic environment, a similar picture to that of the country.

Collier EBCS: Third Quarter 2022 Report

August 01, 2022 / RERI Research Team / Tags: Collier County, Executive Business Climate Survey

In times of growth and expected growth, businesses want to hire more and plan for extra investments that will allow them to meet up their demand. However, if businesses believe the economy will not continue to grow, they refrain from adding workers and investing given expected lower demand for their goods and services. The responses from businesses to our recurring questions show some mixed signals in the current economic environment, a similar picture to that of the country.

Engaging with the community

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